Ain’t Misbehaving by Jennifer Greene

while Mitch reached up to switch on the car’s overhead light. Giving him a startled glance, she gently fingered the exquisite carving. It was a fig tree, five inches high, its leaves delicately sculpted in green glass. Even in that odd light, the tiny ornament had so much brilliance that the plant almost seemed alive.
    “You can overwater that one to your heart’s content and it still won’t die on you,” he remarked. He glanced over at her. “Good Lord, Kay, what’s wrong?”
    “Nothing. It’s absolutely beautiful.”
    Tears trembled in her eyes. She reached over to give him a swift hug, but when she tried to move back, his arm tightened around her shoulder. She felt the brush of his lips in her hair. “Aren’t you silly?” he whispered.
    “I don’t cry in a real crisis, you know. When the chips are down, I remain cool and levelheaded. I just have this problem, with weddings, and old movies—”
    “And presents.”
    “It’s ridiculous, and embarrassing.”
    “It is not,” he denied.
    She glanced up at him, her lips curving in a smile. “You’re in an argumentative mood, aren’t you?”
    “I am not.”
    They both chuckled, and ended up laughing the rest of the drive and afterward, even during the tedious hour they waited for the late plane, carrying paper cups of cold coffee as they wandered around the Spokane airport. “When are you going to tell me what kind of business dinner this is?” Kay asked wryly. “I mean, do you do this often? Pick up people at an airport, take them to dinner and then just send them back on a plane again?”
    “Not often, exactly.” Mitch cleared his throat suddenly. “Hemerling,” he admitted, “is a character. Actually, he’s sort of a fly-by-night crook.”
    “What?”
    “A legal crook,” Mitch corrected himself promptly, and shot her a sidelong glance. “And if you don’t enjoy this dinner, I’m going to be disappointed. The first hour will be boring for you, Kay, but the rest…”
    The loudspeaker announced the arrival of the flight they were waiting for. Kay watched the passengers deplane, expecting…what? Someone who looked like Mitch?
    When the palm at her back urged her forward to greet Stan Hemerling, she nearly gaped at the man whose hand was stretched out to hers. Stan was short, with stiff gray hair and slits for eyes. His suit was rumpled, and he clutched a worn briefcase under his arm as if it held gold. His eyes shifted everywhere, lighting once with masculine appraisal on Kay—she stiffened furiously—before blinking at everyone else in sight. He resembled a gangster in a B movie.
    This was the kind of man Mitch did business with?
    ***
    Kay rearranged her coffee cup for the seventh time. When the handle on the cup was perfectly aligned with the spoon, she glanced up on the off chance that she would catch Mitch looking her way.
    Their eyes didn’t meet, which was definitely good news for Mitch. Sooner or later he’d have to give in, and when he did, she was going to murder him. Nothing fancy, no thrown knives or judo chops. Lethal eye darts were all she had in mind.
    “So, like I was telling you, Kay,” Stan said earnestly, “half the people live underground in sandy-clay houses. It’s the only way they can bear the heat. There isn’t a tree for hundreds of miles, and men have made fortunes selling drinking water—it’s that hard to come by.”
    “Fascinating,” Kay murmured. “Southwestern Australia, you said?”
    “Coober Pedy,” Stan clarified.
    The waitress stopped to refill their coffee cups, which would have been the ideal time for Kay to catch Mitch’s attention. If Stan hadn’t been beaming at her.
    “A dust storm’ll howl for days in that part of the world, it will,” he told her. “Dust’ll rise up to fifteen thousand feet. You can’t see sky nor anything in front of you. When it’s all over, the whole town looks like it’s covered in ash.” Stan leaned back, rubbing his slightly protuberant belly as he